If you’re looking for a sitcom that uses a bare-bones script and leans on improvisation, Larry David’sCurb Your Enthusiasmis the place to look. Like Larry David’s and Jerry Seinfeld’s previous sitcomSeinfeld,Curb Your Enthusiasmrelies on common daily inconveniences to find the humor in the mundane. The show starsa fabricated version of Larry Davidand other common characters in his life, including his fictional wife, Cheryl Hines, manager Jeff Garland, and Jeff’s wife, Susie Garland (the hilarious Susie Essman).
Larry David was inspired to create the show from his experiences writing forSaturday Night Liveand other frustrating occurrences from being involved in Hollywood. Larry has describedCurb Your Enthusiasm’s “Larry” as his alter ego. In an interview with Oliver Burkemen ofThe Guardian, David says that he finds the character “honest,” which can come off as “cranky or rude,” but not unhappy.
After 24 years,Curb Your Enthusiasmhas finally come to an end. This was a show that realistically felt like it could have gone on forever. There is never any shortage of everyday inconveniences or pet peeves that Larry can run into, especially in a modern era where more and more things are off-limits. No subject is really off-limits forCurb Your Enthusiasm, though, and that’s part of why it remains popular. In an article byCommon Sense Media, it is said that Larry approaches most inappropriate subjects, including “religion, disability, and even the death of his own mother.”
WithCurb Your Enthusiasmset to make one final bow, here are the best episodes of the hit HBO series, which, to quote Larry David himself, are “pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
Update June 08, 2025: This list has been updated by Richard Fink following the series finale ofCurb Your Enthusiasmto include even more great episodes from the series' historic run.
17Fatwa! (Season 9, Episode 10)
The season finale for the ninth season sees Larry David’sFatwa!musical almost make it to opening, and to celebrate, Lin-Manuel Miranda (who Larry David got to sign onboard the musical in the previous episode) decides to hold a game of paintball for the cast and crew. There are plenty of funny subplots sprinkled through the episode, like Larry letting Miranda’s cousins stay with him only to find out they are swingers to a sign language interpreter at both the show and Jeff and Susie’s daughter’s wedding being too distracting men because of her figure, to a fun supporting role by Casey Wilson as a stand-in that Larry needs to save him in two different social situations.
The Hamilton Moment Is Comedy Gold
The episode’s final moments, of a paintball-style duel modeled after the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, is a great comedic use ofstar Lin-Manuel Miranda. The various subplots coming together throughout the season are great, and every major character in the show is used in an effective comedic way. The funniest bit is Larry clashing with F. Murray Abraham, who stars in the play, when he thinks Murray is “outfit-tracking” him, which results in the Academy Award-winning actor delivering the funniest reading of the term outfit tracker.
16Mister Softee (Season 8, Episode 9)
In a strangely sexual and also uplifting episode, “Mister Softee” revolves around Larry losing his libido every time he hears the Mister Softee ice cream truck jingle due to a traumatic experience when he was a kid. Larry’s passenger seat in his car becomes unstable, and the way it drives in New York City forces anyone who sits in it to have an orgasm. Meanwhile, Larry is having issues with his therapist, who charged him for a conversation they had out in public.
There’s Incredible Facial Acting
A standout moment is the fact that it features a rare upbeat ending. Bill Bucker,the baseball playerwho notably lost the Boston Red Sox’s 1986 World Series, plays a big role in the series. Bucker’s career has been defined by such a big loss, one the series has a lot of fun with, but in the end, he gets a heroic moment where he catches a baby from a burning building, redeeming himself in the eyes of the public. There is also the incredible facial acting from everyone involved with Larry David’s car seat storyline, particularly at the end when Larry has to be disgusted by Susie’s orgasm while he drives or Leon’s observation about how it feels to him.
15The Carpool Lane (Season 4, Episode 6)
One of the series' most iconic episodes sees Larry trying and failing to guilt his friend Marty Funkhouser into giving away his Dodgers tickets. Larry does end up getting his own tickets to the game, but to beat traffic and use the carpool lane, he picks up a prostitute and pays for her to join him. The depths into which Larry David will go to achieve the most mundane goal, the domino effects of his actions that look terrible to anyone on the outside make for some incredible misunderstandings that are almost impossible not to laugh at.
The Episode Saved a Life
The episode is obviously hilarious, from Larry trying to buy marijuana for his father who is sick, only for his friend Marty to get arrested for drug possession when he is holding Larry’s jacket with the weed in it, but the episode is also important for the behind the scenes story. The episode is notable forsaving the life of Juan Catalan. Catalan was arrested and tried for a murder that took place on July 27, 2025, the same day the LA Dodgers were playing the Atlanta Braves and the episode “The Carpool Lane” was shot at. Because Catalan could be seen in background footage in the episode, it proved he was innocent. Even though he did not intend to, Larry David did end up doing a good deed.
14Insufficient Praise (Season 10, Episode 5)
Clive Owen guest stars in this hilarious episode, which hands on the actor’s insecurities when he feels that Larry didn’t give him the proper praise for his one-man show. Meanwhile, Larry feels swindled when he gives a swole to Richard Lewis' new girlfriend, Carol (Isla Fisher), after finding out she is a professional cryer. Carol’s story of her mother being hit by a bus, one that Larry doesn’t believe as he thinks it was part of a ruse to get his scarf, comes back full circle at the end in a great way.
Clive Owen in Comedy
Clive Owen is a serious actor, but one who does not get to do a lot of comedy. Here, he has a great time playing against type as an insecure version of himself. One of the funniest moments is when Larry tells Clive he is bad at giving praise, only to rave about a sandwich in front of Clive Owen, much to his frustration. Clive Owen and Isla Fisher are great additions to the series in their single appearance, which goes to show how much fun stars can have when they are allowed to cut loose.
13Thank You For Your Service (Season 9, Episode 5)
In this season nine episode, Larry offends Jeff and Susie’s daughter Sammi’s Afghanistan war veteran fiancée Victor (Chet Hanks) after he doesn’t thank him for his service because he thinks everyone at the dinner party already did, and it would be too much. Larry decides to make it up to him by inviting him to a Revolutionary War reenactment, but when Larry’s golf club gate attendant starts firing on Larry due to having offended him earlier in the episode, it beginstriggering Victor’s PTSD.
An Homage to a Famous War Film
The final moments of the Revolutionary War reenactment are easily the most epic thatCurb Your Enthusiasmhas ever been shot. There is also the funny meta joke about putting Chet Hanks, the son of movie star Tom Hanks, in aSaving Private Ryanhomage. Larry’s simple acts of trying to “reset a relationship” with a woman he went on a date to offending a white country club member by saying his baby looked Asian only for it to be revealed the baby was the result of an affair are great examples of how the writers are able to build so many plots on top of one another.
12The Ski Lift (Season 5, Episode 8)
This episode ofCurb Your Enthusiasmsees Larry take on the challenge of getting Richard Lewis a kidney. To kick the quest off, Larry realizes he must get the attention of the head of the kidney consortium, Mr. Heineman, and so deliberately runs into Heineman’s parked car. After Larry meets the man, he invites him and his daughter on a ski trip. Everything seems to be going to plan until Larry gets stuck on the ski lift with Mr. Heineman’s daughter, and things go ridiculously awry from there.
The Effort For a Kidney
This might be one of the most iconic episodes, mainly in how far Larry will go to help out Richard Lewis while also not wanting to give up his own kidney. The episode’s final moment, Mr. Heineman’s daughter, an orthodox Jew, jumps off the ski-lift because sundown is approaching, and she can’t be alone with a man because Larry refuses to do it. It is one of the funniest moments in the series and a great insight into how Larry David makes situations around him worse.
12 Actors Who Were on Curb Your Enthusiasm Before They Were Famous
From brief bits to more fully realized characters, these 12 actors displayed comedic talents that would later achieve household name status.
11Denise Handicap (Season 7, Episode 5)
Larry starts up a conversation with a beautiful woman at a coffee shop, but he soon realizes that she uses a wheelchair. While originally he is going to break up with her due to seeing it as too much work, he soon realizes how much easier his life becomes having her around, as he can get prime parking spots and not need to wait in restaurants and will be seen as a good person by his friends. After an incident where his phone is damaged, and he can’t find Denise’s phone number because he only ever put her in his phone as “Denise Handicap,” he takes another woman in a wheelchair (who he dubs Wendy Wheelchair) to a private event they are going to, only to discover that Denise is there also.
Larry David and His Self-Serving Ways
“Denise Handicap” highlights justhow self-serving Larry Davidis in the funniest way possible. He continues to date Denise because of the perks he gets from it, including being seen in a positive light by others. Larry David, at the end of the day, will do anything to make his life easier, which is one of the most hilarious parts of the series. The final moment of him being confronted by both women and Rosie O’Donnell beating him up is the cherry on top of what is a hilarious episode.
10The Doll (Season 2, Episode 7)
Larry and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine fromSeinfeld) have successfully pitched a new TV show to ABC. This success gets derailed, however, when Larry gets a bit too involved with the ABC executive director’s family. When visiting, Larry takes one of the daughters, Tara’s, dolls and cuts its hair. The mother and Tara are upset by this, so Larry tries to make it right by stealing a similar doll’s head from Jeff’s daughter. Of course, Jeff’s daughter and his ex-wife are upset by this, and so he switches the doll heads, although no one really ends up happy.
A Connection to Seinfeld
This is one of the series' most iconic episodes and also shares the name with one of thefunniest episodes fromSeinfeld. Like many of the best episodes, this is a situation where Larry messes everything up and then goes to great lengths to make it right, only to make everything worse. The episode features some of the most uncomfortable and funniest scenes inCurb Your Enthusiasm.
9The Spite Store (Season 10, Episode 10)
Season 10 ofCurb Your Enthusiasmis often seen as the best by many fans, and the season finale also happened to be the final episode. In “The Spite Store,” Larry’s season-long arc of making a store just to spite someone who wronged him (a barista named Mocha Joe) finally opens, and it inspires many other celebrities to open their own spite stores, which ends up running manyof the original businessesout of work while leaving the spite stores with no real idea how to do the jobs they opened up to do. The episode features many of the season’s long plotlines finally converging, resulting in Larry being the architect of his own doom.
Larry’s Pettiness Makes a Great Final Joke
TheCurb Your Enthusiasmepisode structure tends to be about setting up an incident that spirals out of control as events crash into one another, and this also tends to be the case with the season finale, where a joke or incident in one episode will finally converge in the season finale. No season does it better than season ten, where it feels like every episode of the season, as well as past seasons, plays out to lead to the episode’s incredible final joke of Larry’s own pettiness about firefighters abusing their signals to run red lights ends up resulting in his own store burning down, and then him being fined for arson.
8The End (Season 5, Episode 10)
It appears “The End” was originally intended tobe the series finale, as following this episode, the series took a two-year break before coming back. This episode involves Larry traveling to Bisbee, Arizona, to meet who he thinks are his real parents after he hires a PI earlier in the season to see if he is adopted. Discovering that he comes from a Catholic family forces Larry to change his personality to become a better person, and he finally agrees to give his friend Richard Lewis his kidney. Yet, in the episode’s final moments, right before the surgery, the PI reveals he screwed up and Larry is not adopted, forcing Larry’s character to reset just before the surgery. Larry David actually dies and goes to heaven but is then sent back to Earth at the end of the episode.
A Funny Display of Magical Realism
The final scene in heaven is the most fantastical the series ever got, but it is one of the most daring and funny displays of magical realism. There is also the great juxtaposition of how somber everyone is when Larry is about to die but then starts getting petty and bitter with one another just a few minutes later, showing how everyone deep down is a bit like Larry David. While this could have been a strong finale for the series, thankfully, in the end, it kept going for seven more seasons that gave us plenty of great episodes.
